questions I put to him. The doctor, by the way, stated to me that he
had known Mr. Hudson, the author of the "Naturalist on the Plata," and
that the latter knew nothing whatever of pumas from personal
experience and had accepted as facts utterly wild fables.

Undoubtedly, said the doctor, the puma in South America, like the puma
in North America, is, as a general rule, a cowardly animal which not
only never attacks man, but rarely makes any efficient defence when
attacked. The Indian and white hunters have no fear of it in most
parts of the country, and its harmlessness to man is proverbial. But
there is one particular spot in southern Patagonia where cougars, to
the doctor's own personal knowledge, have for years been dangerous
foes of man. This curious local change in habits, by the way, is
nothing unprecedented as regards wild animals. In portions of its
range, as I am informed by Mr. Lord Smith, the Asiatic tiger can
hardly be forced to fight man, and never preys on him, while
throughout most of its range it is a most dangerous beast, and often
turns man-eater. So there are waters in which sharks are habitual man-
eaters, and others where they never touch men; and there are rivers
and lakes where crocodiles or caymans are very dangerous, and others
where they are practically harmless--I have myself seen this in
Africa.

In March, 1877, Doctor Moreno with a party of men working on the
boundary commission, and with a number of Patagonian horse-Indians,
was encamped for some weeks beside Lake Viedma, which had not before
been visited by white men for a century, and which was rarely visited
even by Indians. One morning, just before sunrise, he left his camp by
the south shore of the lake, to make a topographical sketch of the
lake. He was unarmed, but carried a prismatic compass in a leather